At Home With Merle - A New Store

Our official Harrisonburg address is now 2265 South Main Street, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Take Exit 243 off Interstate 81, merge right on exiting, go one mile and we are located on the left side in Duke's Plaza, behind McDonalds. Just keep your eyes open for the new 44 foot sign.

The Big Move

For those of you following the "Big Move" at the House of Oak & Sofas store in Harrisonburg, we are happy to report that the move is 90 percent complete. As you know, the number one reason for our move was to combine our warehouse and store operations under one roof. As of this date, April 7, 2007, 100 percent of the store, and 40 percent of the warehouse have been moved. It took all our staff, 40 volunteers from a local youth group, and a dozen friends, about a week's time to move all that furniture--all that furniture being about 100 truck loads. Everyone is happy to go back to a more normal work schedule.

All that moving has reminded me of how many times furniture is moved until it gets to the consumer. Imported goods are moved from the factory floor to a warehouse, from the warehouse to the point of export where they are loaded on a ship, unloaded at an American port and taken to a warehouse, then shipped to our warehouse, then to the showroom floor, and finally to your home. American-made goods skip the first step.

In the past, House of Oak & Sofas received almost all of our furniture at our warehouse off Mosby Road. From there the furniture was either delivered to our customers' homes or taken to our showroom floor. Our new "under one roof" facility will eliminate that last step of loading furniture on our own delivery truck and bringing it to the showroom floor. Over the next 10 years that will add up to a significant decrease in labor as we keep our showroom stocked for you the customer.

The second most important reason for the move was to give you the customer a better showroom for viewing our product. The new showroom is 25 percent larger, considerably more open because of no dividing walls, and offers better showroom lighting. These three factors combine to bring nearly universal agreement from customers in this first week that "it's so much easier to see the furniture." Of course one other factor that adds to this feeling is the fact that we auctioned off about 15% of our excess inventory and that "weight loss" gives us a "leaner" showroom. We hope to see you in the store soon!

Shopping for New Products

Finally, in the middle of our move, four of the staff took a one day trip to the High Point Furniture Market. This 20-year tradition keeps us educated on new product and emerging fashions. Due to the hectic schedule over the time of the move, we compromised and cut our usual three-day buying trip down to one day. What was new? All shades of brown, ice blues, and orange-reds continue to be very hot colors. Clean line designs in transitional and modern styles give furniture a very functional "no-nonsense feel." And distressed finishes are found on styles from traditional to transitional. Not only do these finishes give a primitive or antique feel to these bedroom, occasional and dining pieces, but these finishes also permit the customer to mix their new pieces with their "time worn" furniture without the old pieces taking on a "second-hand-store" feel. For our part, House of Oak & Sofas ordered some new smartly styled (and priced) leather sofas and chairs, a new "retro-modern" group from Flexsteel, and several dining and bedroom groups.

Keep tuned for upcoming sales events this spring. Right now, for the month of April, all bedroom furniture is on sale in our Harrisonburg store, and the Dalton, Ohio Outlet Store continues to offer everyday low pricing on everything from beautiful wall art to living room groups. In May, we will be celebrating the Grand Opening of the new store in Harrisonburg with special deals in both stores. Keep checking us out in the meantime. We look forward to your visits!